LIZA GROEN TROMBI

LIZA GROEN TROMBI is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Locus. An avid reader of SF, she has a BA in Spanish Literature with a minor in History from SFSU and studied at Editcetera, an editorial association in Berkeley, before joining the magazine staff in early 2003. She became Editor-in-Chief in 2009. In addition to editing the magazine, she participates in convention panels and awards juries, is one of the organizers of the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle, and has published several titles for the Locus Press imprint. Trombi serves as board president of the Locus Science Fiction Foundation. She lives in Oakland with her partner author Daryl Gregory and her two young daughters.

For the most part, I found Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to be an enjoyable space adventure, deploying consistently dazzling visuals in support of an involving story that never becomes entirely predictable. And while serious issues are intermittently raised, the film is refreshingly unpretentious, in contrast to other recent films, as the director’s primary aim was clearly to entertain audiences, not to enlighten or inspire them with portentous bromides.